


Helix Entanglement

by NightsMistress



Category: Steins;Gate
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Movie, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 11:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12652260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/pseuds/NightsMistress
Summary: The first sign that things weren’t going to be as they were before Okabe slipped through to the R worldline was a few days after. The humidity was the same, the panic attacks were an unwelcome but not unexpected event, but Makise Kurisu was also there and that made all the difference.Set after Steins;Gate - Load Region of Deja Vu, and also includes some incorporation of Steins;Gate 0 canon.





	Helix Entanglement

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to my beta, Fortune_Maiden, for all the work she did with this story. ♥ 
> 
> Of course, it's her fault that I ended up playing/watching this series in the first place ...

The first sign that things weren’t going to be as they were before Okabe slipped through to the R worldline was a few days after. The summer heat was unbearable, and short of running the air-conditioning continuously — which, of course was not an option with the rent increase — the only options were to sit in front of a fan or use the shower to wash the sweat away. He and Daru had already done the former, and it had not helped. 

The shower helped. He sighed in relief as the cool water fell against his skin, sluicing the sweat away in a gentle fall. Summer was the only time when the low water pressure in the shower was a benefit, as it meant that he could spend longer in the shower without thinking he was wasting valuable mad scientist time. Here in the shower he could let his thoughts empty, and just exist in this time and space. It was a simple pleasure that had been denied him the last few days, and he let his eyes flutter closed to enjoy the sensation of water against his skin.

His eyes snapped open as he heard something outside. He looked around wildly, struggling to breath around the panic that closed his throat shut, and tried to tell himself that he was overreacting. The building was old, and it always creaked. He dismissed the thought as the sound was too regular to be the building settling and it definitely wasn’t an earthquake. Now that he was listening more carefully, he could identify it as someone breathing and a series of soft clicks, as if someone was at the computer. It wasn’t Daru. It was too quiet to be Daru. It was someone else, someone who hadn’t announced their arrival and he didn’t recognize and therefore should not be there and — 

_Several men with guns storm in the lab. They look foreign, cold and very capable of using the guns that they are pointing at the four lab mems. Okabe should be able to hear the others’ ragged breathing, his own breathing, but his heartbeat is too loud in his ears. All he can hear is the click of Kiryuu Moeka’s heels as she makes her way up the stairs in slow, deliberate steps. The sound of her footsteps goes on infinitely, repeating again and again, and if Okabe could only catch his breath he would scream from the horror of it all. He’s frozen in place, unable to move to protect Mayuri from being shot. He can’t do anything other than watch helplessly as Mayuri dies again and again and again it happens every time she says his name and it’s all his fault that she dies why had he been so stupid to think he could manipulate time and he’ll do it again and again until he escapes and why won’t it all end —_

— and Okabe gasped raggedly for air, hands balling into fists against the sides of his thighs. He didn’t remember when he had fallen to his knees, when his ears started to ring, or when his vision started to tunnel. He bowed his head against the stream of tepid water as it fell, uncaring, plastering his hair to his face in clinging tendrils. The tiles dug into the skin of his knees as he sagged under the weight of memory. The dull pain steadied him, gave him something to focus on as his breathing settled and his heartbeat slowed.

He told himself that this would pass. He had found Steins Gate, and in the last year found an equilibrium between his memories’ intrusion into his daily life and presenting himself as being normal. He had found that path once, and he would find it again. He clung to that as he panted on the floor of the shower, and told himself that it had only been a few days since Kurisu had helped him come back from the terribly lonely R worldline. He had time to be patient with himself, and this time around he knew that things would be better. He knew that he could learn to live with the guilt of what he had done in the multitude of worlds he had traveled through to come to this time and place.

Rational thought descended on him gradually, with each breath that he forced into his lungs without gasping. He was able to understand the sounds he heard, and also make sense of them. The rapid-fire clicking were keys on a keyboard rather than heels on stairs. The voice he could hear now was an irate Kurisu, rather than a terrified Mayuri. He shook his head in weary disbelief as he was finally able to make out what Kurisu was saying; she was muttering about how stupid her fellow @channel residents were for not understanding basic concepts like higher level physics.

He reached up with a shaking hand and fumbled with the faucet, turning the water off. He took a breath to steady himself, and then pushed himself off the ground and dried himself as best he could given how humid the small space was after a shower. His hands felt steadier, his mind calmer, as he towel-dried his hair, and he thought that now he’d be ready to finish getting dressed.

It was then that he paused. His clothing was on the couch on the other side of the room, from where he had stripped it off to sit in front of the fan with Daru earlier that day. If it had been Mayuri at the computer, Okabe would have simply dressed himself in a towel and collected his clothing. After all, they were childhood friends, and there was nothing strange about that. He couldn’t do that in front of Kurisu, and he wanted to squirm in embarrassment at the thought of it. He also couldn’t stay in the shower indefinitely. As such, there was only one thing to be done: Kurisu would have to pass him his clothes through the door.

He leaned up against the door and yelled, “Christina!”

“Don’t call me Christina!” Kurisu yelled back. Clearly her heart wasn’t in it, as Okabe could still hear her typing furiously. He wondered who she was eviscerating with her scientific knowledge this time, and whether they would appreciate her for it. Unlikely. He hadn’t when she had turned her razor-sharp tongue on him, even if it was deserved.

“Assistant!” he called again, louder this time. His voice dropped into the lower register that he reserved solely for these moments. “Arise from your slothful mockery for I, Hououin Kyouma, require your aid in plunging the world into chaos!”

“I’m not your assistant!”

The familiarity of this exchange steadied Okabe further, and he pushed on. His lips twisted into a wide grin that felt familiar, and he wished he had an old lab coat on hand to don dramatically and have it catch in the breeze. Of course, if he had a lab coat on hand, he wouldn’t need to yell at Kurisu through the door like this to get his clothes back.

“It is a minor thing, a trifle that is below your esteemed capabilities, my dear Christina, but its importance cannot be overlooked. Without it, the Organization will be unchecked by the greatest scientific mind the world has ever seen! I require you — no, the world requires you! — To collect a package and deliver it, undamaged and unseen, to me.”

He thought that should take care of the problem. 

“You what?” Kurisu demanded. “Why can’t you do it yourself? And why are you shouting through the door?”

“I have been waylaid!” Okabe protested. “Caught off-guard by the wiles of the Organization’s most cunning agents, which have left me unarmed, nay, unarmored!”

Kurisu sighed heavily. “Only you would carry on about this about your clothes. Why don’t you just wear a towel? I’m busy right now.”

Okabe cursed the seductive lure of @channel. Even his assistant, the clever and cunning Christina, was vulnerable to the siren song of correcting someone who was wrong on the Internet. He thought about pretending to have received a call from his handlers about a secret mission, but decided not to. It really was very humid in the shower area, and he was starting to feel dizzy from the heat. 

He draped the towel around his hips, tucking the end of the towel inside its folds, and then planned his route to minimize the time spent half-dressed in front of Kurisu. He thought that the most efficient way would be if he moved fast towards the couch and picked up the clothing as he turned to head back to the shower. There was probably some scientific principle about that, but he couldn’t think of it at the moment. Not with Kurisu just outside and him wearing only a towel.

He opened the door with a flourish to cover his embarrassment, and stalked over to the sofa. His clothing was where he had left it, a discarded pile of pants, shirt, and underwear, all covered with his lab coat. At least he had had the forethought to do that so that Kurisu couldn’t see anything. 

He could feel her gaze on him and he flushed. 

“What are you staring at?” he stammered. He tried to summon the haughty arrogance of Hououin Kyouma as he added, "What kind of perverted experiments are you planning now?"

Even he could hear that he just sounded embarrassed.

“That’s …” Kurisu trailed off, still staring. Okabe looked up at her, taken aback and a little affronted at the horror in her voice. It was her suggestion that he come out here in a towel, after all. She was staring at him with wide eyes, and he followed her gaze down.

He’d forgotten how large the scar on his abdomen was. It had healed cleanly into a thin jagged line, but it was as long as his hand was wide, and very obvious against his skin. Okabe had grown used to the sight over the last year, had even come to see it as a sign of his escaping the terrible bonds of convergence, but he couldn’t deny that it looked like he had been torn open. That made sense, as that was exactly what had happened.

“Ah …” Okabe managed. He swallowed. “It’s not that bad. It looks a lot worse than it was.”

He didn’t look at Kurisu. He didn’t want to see her expression. He wasn’t sure whether it would be worse if it was pity or revulsion or something else entirely, but he did know he couldn’t bear to see it. 

“I didn’t know,” Kurisu said quietly. Okabe closed his eyes. Pity or revulsion would have been better than Kurisu’s soft, sad voice. “Could you tell me how it happened?”

It was a conversation he did not want to have, and had not for a year. He had avoided it on the roof of Radio Kaikan, quietly bleeding out as he leaned against Daru’s shoulder and losing the train of Mayuri’s questions after a few words. He had pretended to not remember what had happened as the police officer asked him who had attacked him, passing it off as a transient amnesia brought about by trauma. He had avoided it with his parents, who knew so little of what he had done that summer and who would never know if he had his way.

Avoiding the conversation of what he had done to save Kurisu’s life had become as automatic to him as blinking. It was terrifying how easily he was undone by Kurisu’s question, his protective shell pulled off one piece at a time by someone who should not remember any other worldline than this one. It was equally terrifying how much he wanted to share this burden with her, like he had with every Kurisu in every timeline.

“Let me get dressed first,” he said, bunching up his clothes in his hands. His voice sounded colorless in his ears and it was a struggle to speak.

Kurisu blinked, and then yelped as she spun the chair around away from him before covering her face with her hands.

Okabe took the opportunity to flee back into the shower area, slamming the door behind him.

He felt fluttery and unsteady as he reached into the pocket of his lab coat, pulling out a small cylinder of medication. He dry-swallowed one tablet, and told himself that in fifteen minutes things would be better. It could even be earlier; it wasn’t quite a panic attack but instead the prelude to one. He’d become very good at identifying when one was about to start, and it was a habit he’d have to get back into over the summer.

He dressed automatically, deliberately trying to think of nothing. The humidity and the residual panic made him faintly dizzy, and his hands shook as he draped his lab coat around his shoulders. The weight of the fabric was soothing, an uncomfortable presence that was peculiarly comforting. He didn’t think he could muster another appearance of Hououin Kyouma to distract Kurisu, not while he was holding onto what was left of his composure with his fingernails, but he thought he could have a conversation with her at least.

Kurisu was already on the sofa when he emerged, a glass of water in her hand. She gave it to him as he sat down next to her. The panes of glass were cool and slick and he had to hold it with both hands to keep it from falling. He took a convulsive swallow of water, and another, and was very conscious of Kurisu’s careful regard.

“That’s not just a knife wound,” Kurisu said when he didn't say anything. “It’s been torn open.” She frowned in thought, and then said slowly, “You had to have torn it open.”

Okabe nodded. He didn’t trust his voice enough to speak. He drank some more water.

“I had wondered,” Kurisu continued. “There was so much blood, none of it mine. I thought you’d died.”

“It was meant to look like you had,” Okabe said. “To me, that is. The other me. The past me.”

Kurisu looked at him and shook her head in disbelief. “I know that,” she said derisively. “But you still could have died. I don’t even know why you didn’t. It sounds like you survived out of sheer luck.”

“I suppose I was due some at that point.” Okabe had meant for that to sound light. Instead, it sounded flat and tired, even resigned. He stared down at his hands holding the glass. They'd stopped shaking, the medication finally dulling his anxiety and leaving him with a hollow emptiness. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize when I asked you the question to begin with," Kurisu said. "I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to know what you did to save me."

"I didn't want you to know that," Okabe confessed to the glass in his hands. "You and Mayuri being alive was enough for me."

"That's not enough for me," Kurisu said sternly. Okabe looked up in surprise. "You don't get to do that," an oblique nod at his abdomen, "to save me, and then disappear afterward. I won't let you. Even if you don't care that you might disappear, I won't let it happen."

Okabe swallowed, looking back down at his hands.

"I care," he said quietly. He did. Even with the weight of everything he had done last summer on him, he had cared and did care. 

"Good," Kurisu said with particular emphasis. "Because I will always come and find you."

The intensity of her promise was undermined somewhat by her blush. Not that he could judge, Okabe supposed. She was here, with him, in this place, and that was a minor miracle of itself.

He looked up at her, finally, the corner of his mouth curling up slightly in a smile.

“Thanks,” he said. He wasn’t sure whether he was thanking her for saving him from the R timeline, for being here now, or just for being Makise Kurisu.

She smiled lopsidedly. “Not a problem.”


End file.
